Bouncing a tennis ball during XC practice?

High School Running High School Training

8 years ago 11/18/2015 3:13pm EST

So I was taking my kids to the park next to an area high school last night and saw the typical crew of about 10 HS XC guys running on the trail.

A guy at the end of the pack was bouncing a tennis ball while running. They did happen to be running beside a tennis court at the time, but it still struck me as odd.

Was he that bored? Does his daddy make him run so he won't be fat like his diabetic uncle? Was his coach trying to get him to have better hand/eye coordination for some weird reason? What the?

8 years ago 11/18/2015 3:39pm EST

re: Up and down

He probably picked up the tennis ball less than a minute before you saw him and thought it would be fun to try to bounce it while running.

8 years ago 11/18/2015 3:46pm EST

re: once was a kid

This kid most like has ADHD. Get him some adderall ASAP before he has any fun again.

8 years ago 11/18/2015 3:54pm EST

re: Up and down

Up and down wrote:
So I was taking my kids to the park next to an area high school last night and saw the typical crew of about 10 HS XC guys running on the trail.
A guy at the end of the pack was bouncing a tennis ball while running. They did happen to be running beside a tennis court at the time, but it still struck me as odd.
Was he that bored? Does his daddy make him run so he won't be fat like his diabetic uncle? Was his coach trying to get him to have better hand/eye coordination for some weird reason? What the?

I tried suspending an athlete for playing with a ball instead of running & his parents complained to the high school administration. He was allowed to race that Wednesday. Sigh.

8 years ago 11/18/2015 3:54pm EST

re: Up and down

One time on an easy run the day before a meet, my high school teammates and I found a tennis ball and tossed it around for most of the 30 min run. It was fun and didn't take anything away from the run. We all ran great the next day.

Yes, sometimes running loops around the same park you always run in can get boring. Why do you have to question what other people are doing?

8 years ago 11/24/2015 11:36am EST

re: #fs

The tennis ball run is a classic tradition at my HS. Every time the tennis players launch a ball over the fence we are sure to snag it and put it to our enjoyment. Bounce-catch is our preferred game as we take our warmup jog before a brutal track workout. We had a guy who built up a stash of approx. 30 balls before he graduated.

8 years ago 11/25/2015 4:30pm EST

re: Up and down

it gives you a change of things where my team would sometimes like 3-4 times per season have a tennis ball and then throw it high and far in front of us and catch it mid stride when we got there 4 seconds later. One kid also brought a yo yo once and are coach tried it while running as well. Its not hurting our training at all (4 sub 4;20 milers and 6 sub 2 800 runners and a sub 9 miler with 3 others sub 9:30) so as far as we were concerned it didn't really matter and made the run a little bit difference.

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